Gift of the Igam
by taerkitty
Summary: Gift-giving at the Social Welfare Agency is always fraught with worry and frustration as OC handler Arnester and OC cyborg Corina will soon discover. Lauro / Elsa fratello in very minor supporting role.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Dr. Bianchi smiled at the young patient. "Okay, that's all my questions this time. You seem fine."

"Thank you, Doctor." She threw the starched, white sheets off her, stood from the hospital bed, then tore away the oversized gown. She gave a merry smile, followed by a twirl, causing the hem of her light tan corduroy jumper to flare out as if a bell.

As they hurriedly stowed their surprised expressions, she gave an exaggerated curtsey. "I figured we'd be done today. Was I wrong?"

The doctor gave an amused snort. "I guess we've done these enough times."

Corina turned to Arnester. "Can we go now? It's the first clear day all December." Though her voice was soft, her gentle smile gave the sentence an upward lilt at the end.

The blond man pushed his wire-framed glasses by the bridge, smiling. He turned to the white-jacketed man. "So, what do you say, Doc? We good to go?"

The doctor gave his usual wan smile. "You know better than that. Sorry, Corina, I can't let your handler go just yet. Maybe 10 minutes?"

She gave Arnester a quick peck on the cheek, then seemed to vanish out the door while the echo of her giggle still brightened the room.

Dr. Bianchi ran his hand through his close-cropped hair. "Well, she's doing better. However, we know Katrina, Olympia, and Sabine are still in there. Shelby might be gone, and I can't find any trace of Prissi, but she still has those blackouts, right?"

With a grim countenance, Arnester nodded. "They're not as frequent, but…"

"I could recommend to the Director to give her more Condixionie, you know."

"I'd rather you didn't. I mean, probably, you're right; it might help her integrate the other alters faster-"

As he laid down his clipboard, Bianchi added, "Or, in the case of Sabine, that may be the only way she'll go away."

Arnester slid the brim of his fedora between his fingers. "I haven't seen Sabine in over a month. Are you sure she's still in there? Maybe she's already integrated?"

Bianchi gave a sigh. "No, I was able to bring her out under hypnosis. Putting her back, that was a fight."

"But, back to what I was saying, I'd prefer we leave the conditioning level at where it is now. More might help get rid of her other personalities, but not if it'll change _Corina's _personality." He put the light-grey chapeau on, but without his characteristic flourish.

The doctor gave a slow nod. "You know I'm reluctant to interfere with how you train her. Or any of the handlers. But, if one of the other alters surfaces during an operation, I won't have a choice."

Arnester gave a very slow and thoughtful pause before his next words. "What about Olympia?"

"To be truthful, Olympia is probably the best alter for this place. She's quiet, she's loyal, and she isn't squeamish. But, is that what _you _want? Or _who_, in this case."

Arnester shook his head. "No. No, Corina's really why I'm in this to begin with."

"Well, there you have it. She's improved a lot since she first came here, but if Corina is still having problems in the field, we'll have to … to do something about it."

Ξ§§§Ξ

Arnester walked up behind his platinum blonde charge. As always, she had her art pad out. This time, it depicted the lone tree in the courtyard, bony and bare. Looking closer, he realized that was only the shadow of the tree, that she had left a faint outline of the actual tree absent against the lightly toned background.

"I'm not fine, am I?"

He lowered himself to one knee and ran a hand through her long, luxurious hair. "You're still cleared for operations."

"I'll try harder. I'm sorry, but there's just so many of them." She never looked up, never looked away from the paper. However, her voice lightened slightly. "You're going to stain your pants like that. Grass stains are hard to get out."

"I'll just buy a new one. I wanted to get a better look at what you're drawing."

"I'm going to compare this one with the one I drew last year."

"Was the sun at the same place?"

Corina shook her head, sending graceful waves cascading down the length of her tresses. "No, but drawing the shadow makes it easier to count the branches. That's how I'm going to measure time. For this one, I mean."

Arnester nodded. "I don't get it."

"You can see the tree, right? It's this part, where I didn't draw." Her words' cadence increased very minutely, but only Arnester could perceive the improvement in her tone, her pacing. Her mood.

"Hmm. It's very faint, but I can see it."

Her finger described a diagonal sweep on the paper. "And this is the sun, casting the shadow. Don't you see? It's like overlapping fields of fire for the kill zone. If one of us can't make the shot, then the other one can."

"And here I thought you were just drawing a tree." He gave a light chuckle.

"The _shadow _of a tree." She turned, the pencil finally laid down. Her face glowed with that smile, that wonderful oasis of joy that reminded Arnester of why he did this job.

Ξ§§§Ξ

Softly humming _Ode to Joy_, Corina skipped across the threshold to her dormitory room. She found the prior year's drawing and laid it side-by-side with today's work. The tree, far from a mere sapling, didn't evidence any change in height. She was startled from her counting by a soft sob from the upper bunk.

"I'm sorry, Corina." Eyes red and damp, her roommate crawled so her head peered over the edge.

The other girl gathered her drawings, then paused. "Do you want to see my latest?"

A soft "No" floated down.

"Should I leave?"

Elsa rolled to one side, her head no longer visible. "No. Maybe you can help. I want to give Lauro something. I just can't think of what. I've been trying. I've been trying all day."

Corina nodded as she slid her drawer beneath the beds closed. "I want to give Arnester something, too."

"That's easy. You can give him a drawing."

Corina took out her Desert Eagle and started field-stripping it. "No, I know what he wants, and I can't give it to him."

"What does he want, then?"

She inspected the lands and grooves of the barrel against the lowering sun. "He wants Olympia. He says he loves me, but he really loves Olympia."

"But, aren't they working to, you know, get rid of all of those other personalities?"

Corina started reassembling the massive pistol. "Yes. Well, they're trying to get rid of _Sabine_. Katarina's… she's not useful to the Agency, not like Olympia is, but at least she's not crazy."

"I like the funny one. What's her name?"

"Prissi. She's gone. That was hard. I cried for days."

"I don't remember that."

"That's because I was in Medical."

"Oh." Elsa took a deep breath. "Well, is it okay to talk about something else?"

"Sure. What do you think Lauro wants?"

A soft thump sounded as Elsa pounded the pillow. However, the sturdy bedframe creaked loudly as protest. "That's the problem! He never says anything! He's always either criticizing, or just not saying anything about stuff. He doesn't like _anything_, anything at all!"

"Do you mean stuff-stuff, or you-stuff?"

"Any of it. All of it. Nothing is ever good enough for him. Nothing!"

Corina nodded. "Is it okay if I ask Arnester to help?"

But Elsa was beyond words at this point. Sobs were the only answer to land on Corina's ears.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The IMI Desert Eagle was ridiculously outsized in Corina's hands, as it would have been with any twelve-year-old. Outsized, yes, but hardly ungainly. With synthetic myomere muscles, carbon-fibre sheathed titanium bones, and superconducting metal strands latticing her nervous system, the young cyborg held the .50 caliber pistol as steadily as she did her pencils. The three tritium spots floated just below the center ring of the target, steady as if they were painted on the paper 15 meters downrange.

Her lower jaw twitched to one side in disappointment. Her second shot still went high, not even landing on the paper. She had practiced and practiced holding the pistol outstretched; she could now keep her offhand stance steady for nearly five minutes. Her first shot was in the 10-ring, so why was she having so much trouble controlling the recoil? All the other girls could get their second shot at least on the target paper, if not better.

_Especially Claes, but she doesn't count, not with her VP-70M's three-shot burst._

Imagining the Desert Eagle firing a triple salvo gave her a giggle. It would probably knock her on her backside.

Ξ§§§Ξ

Arnester pointed to two perforations on the target. "You marked these as a double-tap. Why did only this second shot land on the paper?"

"Because I had to sneeze? I mean, I sneezed, _then_ I put my finger on the trigger."

"Hmm. So, I should pack a shaker of ground pepper, then?"

They both joined in merry laughter, then fell silent as Arnester rolled up the paper. "About Christmas…"

Corina cocked her head to one side. "Will we be going to Nonna's this year?" A fog seemed to slide over her face as she spoke, masking her emotions, her thoughts.

Arnester forced a smile. "I've been telling them how much you've improved over the year. I know they want to see for themselves."

"But what if… what if Sabine comes out again? That look on Poppa's face…" She pressed herself against his shoulder. Thoughts of staining his coat were no more.

"_Sorellina, mia sorellina_. It'll be fine. The Condixionie has her under control, right? When was the last time she got out? Five weeks?"

She sobbed something, something unintelligible with her face buried in his jacket. Her tears flooded out, and she pressed one eye, then the other, seemingly unable to dab both against his broad bicep.

"What was that, Cory-Annie? I couldn't hear you."

After her second muffled attempt to speak, he pried her free from his arm.

With her eyes clenched and damp, her head still turned sided to side.

"She's not under control?"

She threw herself in his lap. The sobs stopped, though her back still heaved unsteadily as she took in breath after ragged breath.

Clumsily, he nudged his chair away from his desk and over by his bed. The handler's dormitory room was sparsely furnished, though far from spartan. With effort, he managed to guide them both onto the narrow mattress, then draw a blanket over his young charge.

As he stood and straightened his tie, he noted her hand had drifted by her face. The fingers were balled tightly, but the thumb disappeared into her mouth.

_Katarina._

He sighed and let himself crash back onto his office chair. As he reached for the book of nursery rhymes, he gave a small grimace, but only for a heartbeat.

_It's going to be a long night._

Ξ§§§Ξ

"Uncle Arno? Why are you crying?" Katarina yawned, stretched, and looked around. She was in Uncle's room again. She wasn't in the dream anymore. She wasn't at that store. There weren't too many people in it, and everyone wasn't angry. It didn't smell like something was burnt, and two men weren't lying on their backs in front of her. Their eyes weren't open. Their mouths weren't open.

Their bellies weren't slick, red, and runny.

She blinked away that thought. She was in Uncle Arno's room. She was safe. Even if _he_ came, Uncle Arno, big, strong Uncle Arno, would protect her. Just like she would help him.

Her arm was long, longer than she was used to having. Even though she used her too-long arms many times, it still took … Her chin quivering in concentration, she brushed the back of her hand against his still damp face.

He woke with a start. "Oh! Uh…" He studied her up and down, and worry creased his forehead. "Did you sleep well, Katarina?"

"Yes, Uncle. Is everything okay? You're sad."

He gave her a weak smile. "I just thought you were … you were healthier, that's all."

"Momma keeps saying that, too. I _am_ healthy. See? I'm fine!" The sheets flew off as she splayed her arms out, her mouth wide in a grin.

He hurriedly hugged her and whispered in her ear, "I know. But I want you … I mean, I want both you _and_ your momma to be healthy. And happy. And … whole."

He held her by her shoulders at arm's length and looked at her seriously. "But, you have to be quiet. You shouldn't be here. That's very important. I love you, Katie, but no one can find out you're here."

"Doctor Bikie knows I'm here. I was talking with him before I went beddie-bye."

His voice went softer, but sharper. "Bianchi is different. He knows you're a part of Momma, and he can bring you out when _he_ calls you. But he can't know that you can come out _without_ him calling you. Do you see?"

"It's one of Momma's stupid rules again, isn't it?"

"They're not stupid, Katarina. They are safety rules, okay? _Safety_ rules. If we all don't follow them, and that includes Momma, then all of us can get hurt."

She pouted, but nodded, her lips firmly pursed. "Tell me a story."

Uncle Arno held up the thick, brightly illustrated book. "I'm ready."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

With abundant care, Arnester nudged her awake. "Cory-Annie? Is that you?"

"You only call me that when you're scared, worried, or angry, _mio fratello maggiore_. Which is it?"

"Right now, relieved. I wasn't sure if Katarina had gone back yet." He kissed her on the forehead.

"She's in the back. But, she's not talking to me, so I don't know what happened while I was out."

He shrugged. "Nothing out of the ordinary. I read her three or four stories, and she went to sleep. I waited until she stopped sucking her thumb, then woke you. It could have been worse. It could have been Sabine."

Corina nodded. "She's still here. She's always here. We started fighting, and that's when Katarina got to the front."

"I'm proud of how hard you're fighting. I can't imagine how tough it is."

She sighed. "Probably as hard as you seeing Poppa's face last Christmas when Sabine got loose."

"We don't have to visit for Christmas, you know. I can just tell them that we're trying something new at the hospital—"

She stood at her full height, which only reached Arnester's chin were he standing. She towered over his seated form, put her fists on her hips and gave him a mock glare. "You remember what we signed up for. I get four more Christmases with them. At most."

Arnester's head sagged. "I should have never made this deal with the devil."

The young girl crouched and urged him to face her by cupping his chin with both hands. "Your deal with this devil already gave us one more Christmas with Momma and Poppa, one more than Sabine would have let us have. Look at me, brother. Every day we have is another day we won from Sabine. Do you remember telling _me_ that when we first started?"

Arnester gave a weak smile. His memory went much further back than that, back even before they found Corina beaten so badly the teachers thought her right ear was her mouth. How her ribcage expanded side-to-side as she struggled for breath, not up and down. He let his mind wander, watching Colonel Lorenzo visit him in the hospital room, and that clipboard, that damned clipboard. The form was bland, but the paper's edges were walled by bold, jarring, alternating yellow and black stripes. From his own time in the Italian intelligence agencies, Arnester knew what that paper meant, and how much power lay in those words printed on that stark bond.

Should he have signed? Lorenzo promised the impossible, just when Arnester was facing the unfathomable. His beloved sister's prognosis was grim for ordinary people, but hearing it made his heart grow unbearably heavy and stony. Locked-in syndrome.

She was not brain-dead, though the emergency room team thought that her only fate.

She was not brain-dead, but could not respond, could not move, could not speak.

She was not brain-dead. Instead, she was going to be trapped with Sabine, alone, fighting, for the rest of her life.

He remembered when she woke up, after seven weeks of coma. How her eyes could follow him, how her mouth could form that smile, one so sweet he could almost hear his own cheeks form a smile despite his fatigue. He reveled in the joy of finally being able to tell her what he did, what he _really_ did, how he served Italy, no matter how much the parasites hollowed it out from within. And the bonding of their first time at the pistol range! When he entered the intelligence field, he was cautioned of the emptiness of leaving his family out, but this was so wonderful! He could still fight for Rome, and yet have Corina's adoration and adulation!

It was too good to be true.

His mien darkened as his thoughts flowed to the gradual trickle of "forgotten" tidbits about this miracle treatment. About her lifespan. About Condixionie's side-effects. And about how the Social Welfare Agency so gladly enhanced them to wield absolute power over his sister. **His** sister. And, of late, that Damoclean sword hanging over them both, the threat to flood her with Condixionie so all the personalities would be rendered into tiny pieces, so there would be only one identity in the end. They didn't care who it was. They said it would be "a hybrid of all of her alters." However, they couldn't predict, or wouldn't say, what would happen to Corina, beloved, wonderful Corina. They just wanted a robot.

A killer.

"Brother, you're doing it again."

Arnester blinked back his surprise. "Doing it… what?"

"You're getting angry for me. If I'm not going to be mad at them, you're going to, right?"

"No, I was—You're right. But you _can't_ be mad at them. It's part of the conditioning. You just can't. It's part of your … your **_programming!_**" He spat that last word; to him, it was pure venom.

"Is it? I don't feel that way. You said I was programmed," Corina said with a quick, impish smile to needle him about his reaction to that very word, "That I was _programmed_ to love you. But, how can that be, when I already loved you before this? I don't love you _more_. I can't because I loved you with _all_ of me, even before the shots."

Arnester took a deep breath. "About them. How many did you save?"

"So far? Eight. Nine, if we skip tonight's. I'm sorry there's so few. They really help with Sabine. I try hard not to need them, but …"

"Keeping Sabine in the back is more important than collecting Condixionie. I'm sure we can get enough for them to copy it. We can bring eight to the dinner. Make sure to take both shots every day from now on."

Corina nodded, resolving in her mind to keep hoarding the vials. After all, that was going to be his gift.

Ξ§§§Ξ

Arnester wandered the shoppers' paradises, Via Cola di Rienzo, Via del Corso, and even La Rinascente, stopping to make a wish at the Trevi Fountain, a wish to find the perfect gift for Corina. She had all the charcoals, pencils, and chalks she wanted, even to the point of asking him to not buy so many. Same with pads and pads of paper in sizes from newsprint down to notepads.

He thought about perhaps an easel, but, upon talking to sales staff, realized that her joy was in the spontaneity, the informality, the serendipity of finding something, especially something that would change over time. She would see it, pull out a pad, draw it, and note the date and location on the back. Sometimes in a week, sometimes in a month, she would go back and draw it again, then see the difference. And, for trees, a year.

She bore the loss of time far better than he did.

_Time!_ It struck him at Piazza della Cancelleria, the massive and ornate Renaissance palace, thronged with tourists. The whir and click of shutters seemed to describe a flock of mechanical birds, each with a different pitch, a different pattern, but all of them, the same species.

A species that had the ability to freeze time. She could save so much of her own time by just taking photographs!

And, just down the street, nestled between two restaurants, was a camera shop.

Providence.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

By only injecting half a vial, then capping the needle, Corina was able to eke out seven more vials. However, this left her in a new quandary: how to tell Arnester that she disobeyed him? She found in ironic enough she could test the reins like this because she was already halving her doses, initially at his direction. _But am I programmed if this is what I want to do regardless?_ The endless circle of free will being granted, then attempted to be withdrawn, but failing because of that selfsame free will amused her as she dressed.

Today, she decided to complement Arnester. Her brother always wore cool grays or light browns. Though it might not be seasonal, Corina decided on a light grey spring-length dress because the pleats were lined with white, so the somber grey would suddenly burst forth with brightness when she moved. That was how she hoped it would come across.

As she guided her knit dark-grey tights, her concession to the cold winter winds, she enjoyed what she could of the last time she saw her family. _Before Sabine came out and ruined it_. Of course, neither she or Arnester could tell their loved ones that they now worked for a secret intelligence agency, striking at the separatists that sought to tear their beloved Italy in twain. Nor could they tell their parents of how much faster and stronger she was, and how adept she was with both her Desert Eagle and her combination M-16 with the 40mm grenade launcher.

Last year was just talking about the hospital, which she and Arnester had to fib and fabricate on-the-spot. While it was a sin to lie, and to disrespect one's parents, Corina found such delicious merriment in the sly glances she and her brother shared that night.

At least, until Sabine got out.

She packed the eight vials, the ones she knew Arnester would appreciate, in her purse. Five of the other seven vials she put in her range bag, for when she could find a better time to give them to Arnester.

She sent the half-syringe from yesterday coursing into her thigh, and was rewarded by that tingling at the base of her neck, that purr elicited autonomously from her chest, and the splash of warmth, of safety, seemingly washing down from her eyes.

She affixed the syringe on the full vial, and injected it, this time jabbing her other thigh. The wonderful sensations and impression bloated and flowed. They seemed to shift in shape, as if something as ephemeral as warmth could have a shape. Where they before neatly sat in ordered rows, each embellishing her heart and mind with such wonder and pleasure, they now swelled onto one another, overwhelming and suffocating.

And in that moment, Shelby died.

Corina couldn't express to anyone else, not even beloved and kind and understanding Arnester, how these integrations eviscerated her. To Dr. Bianchi, and a lesser part, her brother, each integration was a victory. "One down, and four to go!" they would cheer. To her, it was like a friend, or perhaps even a sister, a twin sister, being murdered before her eyes.

Shelby was a layabout, a lazy and aimless soul. She was probably Corina's favourite because she, like Olympia, wouldn't fight to come forward. Better than Olympia, though, was how Shelby welcomed Corina when she was also tired. When Bianchi's questions wore too heavy, or the pitying looks from the other girls clouded too dark, Shelby was always there to comfort, wordlessly, without judgement. Corina could always just sit next to Shelby, and know that she was not alone in her fatigue.

But now, she was.

She couldn't beg succor from Olympia. While Olympia was inoffensive, she was also inert. She did what she needed to do, what she was asked to do, but almost nothing of her own accord. Corina looked at her hands, at the callouses in odd places from having to clamp down too hard on the rough checkered grips of the .50 Action Express pistol to make up for having hands too small.

She remembered balking, freezing, and flinching the last time she was in the field with Arnester, and her surprising jealousy when Olympia came forward and coolly shot the men, then wordlessly returned to the back. Arnester's praise for finally overcoming her qualms landed more like ice-cold rain to her ears than his intended sentiment. He called it target-shyness, but she had no problems on the range.

She just couldn't shoot another person.

It wasn't a matter of morality, or of sin. It wasn't a matter of squeamishness. She was able to kill the first prisoner as part of her field-readiness testing, but that was with her Krav Maga training. She had no problems using the krambit on the second prisoner. She had killed in the field, killed many times. Her target-shyness, as Arnester mislabeled it, and how they both hid it from the Agency was yet one more bond that kept them together.

On the verge of tears, she swallowed back the bile welling up from having killed Shelby. Her face felt aflame, yet her hands shivered and spasmed, unexplained cold numbing them by the second. She felt a wave of regret and loss start to surge, and behind it, Sabine pacing with narrow, eager eyes.

Somehow, Corina managed to affix the needle onto the other full vial. With a loud curse hurled at Sabine, she stabbed her bicep, searing the underlying ersatz flesh. The plunger found itself instantly sent forward, and a boil of Condixionie formed in too small a spot.

The sensations, the over-stimulus, the aches and the fevers, they all quickly dulled, deadened. It was all well within her ability to endure, so long as she was doing it with Arnester, _for_ Arnester. She felt a sense of loss for Shelby, but akin to seeing the bare spot on a bench when a flower pot was removed: a marker for something that was, but is no more, and is not a loss.

Mentally, she sensed an approach, an alter trying to steal her spot. Without thought, without care, and without restraint, she backhanded the intruder. When wailing responded, she gave it a glance. She was not surprised, but more mildly, only slightly, perplexed that Katarina was howling in pain, with the intensity only brought forth by deep and serious injury. Corine had expected Sabine to try for the front, hence her uninhibited strike.

_Oh, well. Let Katarina cry. I have other things to do._

Ξ§§§Ξ

Arnester turned into the street where they spent so many happy years. However, happy memories weren't in keeping with his mood. "Are you all right, Corina? You're very quiet. Thinking about last year again? I keep telling you, it wasn't your fault."

Corina offered up a pro forma smile. "I'm fine. I just dosed up, that's all. I wanted to make sure Sabine will stay put tonight."

"That's good. But, you looked pretty deep in thought. What were you thinking about?" As he spoke, he pulled up to a parking spot.

_About whether or not I want to take this much Condixionie. It's weird. I'm still me, and I'm still the primary. Parts of me feel more like Shelby or Prissi, which Dr. Bianchi said might happen after an integration. But, parts of me feel like Katarina and Olympia, too. I wonder if I can shoot someone now, if Arnester needed me to?_

"Oh, well. I guess every woman's got to have their secrets, right?" He gave her a kiss on the temple, then exited the car.

She too exited the car, her expression flat. "I guess so." She shut the Alfa's door with a minimum of noise, a minimum of effort.

The efficiency unnerved him. "Corina? Look at me. Are you all right? Should we head back?"

She increased the wattage of her smile and added an upward lilt to her words. "Of course. Why are you asking … dear brother?"

"You were like this last year. Just before Sabine… you know."

She gave a shrug and turned back toward the front door of the house. "I said I'm fine. Sabine's behaving herself for once."

He placed a steady hand on her shoulder and gave it a few gentle squeezes. "Okay, promise me this, okay? If you feel anything off, let me know, all right? Especially if anything feels like it did last year, just before the you-know-what."

Still facing away, she draped a cool and loving hand over his, the one on her shoulder. "I promise. I don't remember any of it. Just the gelato, and then I was outside."

"You don't remember what we were doing?"

She nuzzled his hand. "No. Does it matter?"

"How about this: if anyone starts opening photo albums, we're leaving. Got that?"

"Whatever you say, Arnester."

She didn't think it was worth mentioning that Katarina was still crying and moaning.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"Do you have the Condixionie, little one?"

"Yes."

"Can you give your big brother a smile? Otherwise, Poppa and Nonna will find something to worry about." He modeled a wide, desperate grin. "Ugh. Yeah, that feels wrong, doesn't it? Tell you what: we'll just go with us as we are right now, okay? If they ask, we can tell them that the hospital is juggling your medications. Again."

"Yes."

"Arnester Cuno Carofiglio! Are you going to stand there all night? The eels are getting cold!"

"I think that's our dinner calling. Ready?"

"Yes."

Ξ§§§Ξ

Nonna always fried the eels until their fins were singed and black. Arnester grinned, listening with half a mind at how Poppa tried yet again to convince his mother-in-law to give it "less time, more flavor." When he was younger, Arnester preferred the slight bitterness because frying it longer made the fins' cartilage crispy and edible. Eating it that way was easier than picking through the tiny slivers. However, he now grew to appreciate the subtle hues of flavor from different parts of an eel properly cooked. Overcooking flattened them all into the same bland taste from dry, flaky meat.

Poppa was right. Not singed _is_ better. _Like with politics_, he reminded himself. He inwardly cringed at his youthful pride and arrogance to think himself better than Poppa.

"Corina, darling! Are they not feeding you? That's the third bowl of spinach soup! No, no! We have another pot, keep eating!" Carmelo, Poppa's brother, laughed heartily, unaware of the spot of red sauce on his grey-flecked moustache.

Arnester waited an extra beat in case his sister cared to respond, but she resumed eating after Carmelo bade her to do so. "It's … they're changing the medications for her. They said increased appetite was one of the possible side effects."

Momma grinned as she cleared yet another round of stoneware from the many settings. "It's good to see such a healthy appetite. I just wish you'd relax, _bambina_. You're starting to remind me of salted cod! So stiff, so stiff!"

With a happy sigh, Arnester pushed himself from the table. "Well, she's eating my share, then. I'm as full as an egg!" He patted his belly, but lightly so the Kevlar underlayer wouldn't be noticed.

Carmelo smiled and set aside his plate of golden-crusted seafood. "I feel like a Toscano. Would you care for one, Arnie?"

Arnester smiled at his uncle. "Just this once, maybe."

Momma slapped Poppa on his right shoulder with her red-checked dish towel. "Your brother! Corrupting our son! For shame!"

Ξ§§§Ξ

Carmelo handed his nephew a freshly unwrapped Toscano Stilnovo cigar, then rummaged in his pockets for his guillotine.

"Business must be good." Arnester grinned as he smelled the fine tobacco. "The last time, we had to share it."

"I'm afraid not so good. You're just holding that one while I find my… ah!" The shiny cutter flashed in the anemic porch lighting.

One cut later, the two men lit their stubby halves of that single cigar from an old World War II vintage lighter. After Carmelo flicked it shut, he took a deep drag on his. "I'm sorry I was late last year. Angelo still talks about it, you know. He says Corina was like she had a demon in her."

The smoke rings Arnester was forming dissipated as he sighed the rest of his breath away. "Better that than the truth."

Carmelo nodded. "Still, I wish I could have seen her with my own eyes. Everything I've heard about what they could do sounds … unbelievable."

Arnester nodded. "That's why we're going to need our own. I have five more tubes of the medicine. How far along are you?"

"We _almost_ have the formula copied. The problem is that we still can't get the mechanical components small enough. It must be nice, having unlimited Euros."

The younger man gave a bitter laugh. "They're only unlimited because they're from the North. Poppa always says, 'Rome is making Monza as dry as week-old bread.' Still, it's not easy working here in the South, either. I can't wait until I can stop fighting my own people."

"Arnie, those men have too much fire in them. It cooked their brains. It may be hard to hear, and, trust me, it's hard to say." Carmelo thumped his sternum with his clenched fist. "With no hair on my tongue, I tell you we are better off without them. They have no common sense, so they don't listen. They're more dangerous to _us_ than to anyone else. There's no way anyone from the North can fight your Agency. Not without dolls of our own." He paused and patted his nephew's tensing back. "No, I don't mean to include Corina in that. She's _not_ a doll. I was there when she was born, you know. I still remember taking her to the cinema to see _Topolino_. You were in school, yes? You remember, yes? Corina is blood. She's _family_."

After a deep and slow inhale, Arnester nodded. "She's why I'm doing this."

"Speaking of which. We found the Tunisians. We left them alive, like you wanted."

Arnester nodded, his eyes narrow and lethal. "Like they left Corina."

"Yes, just like how they left her. As I said: we're _family_."

Wordlessly nodding, Arnester wiped away the errant dollop of sauce on his uncle's stately moustache with a resolute index finger.

"_Grazie_, Arnester."

Ξ§§§Ξ

_They're all staring at you._

Corina took in one breath, then another. She imagined herself twirling her krambit, flexing her fingers and feeling the steel ring's caress as it skated around her index finger. One flip. Two flips. Three …

_Look at that man. He's __**terrified**__ of you. Let me show him why._

In her mind, she watched the shiny blade flit as if it was launching, and then alighting upon, her palm time after time. Ten times. Twenty times.

_They __**know**__ it's just a matter of time before I come out. I'm patient. I'll wait._

Corina switched to another method Dr. Bianchi trained into her: mentally, she saw herself slide out each of the seven fifty-caliber rounds from a magazine, arrange them in a row, then a column, then slid them back into the brushed steel box. Again. _Again._ _**Again.**_

_They __**want**__ me to come out. They're here to see me.__** Me,**__ not you. Let me out. Let me give them a __**show**__._

Corina dug deeper into her past, thinking beyond the Agency, beyond Bianchi. She remembered her first psychologist and the initial attempts to treat her. She pinched the web of her left hand between her thumb and forefinger with her right thumb and index finger's fingernails.

_That won't work. That __**never**__ worked. That will only-_

"_**Corina!**_" Momma was instantly by her side, shaking her. Barely shaking her and straining to do even that.

Corina turned to Momma and regarded her stricken face, and those horrified, unblinking eyes. With but mild interest, she followed their trajectory and ended where her fingernails had drawn blood.

"Oh."

The young girl slowly raised her hand until the wound was less than three centimeters from her nose, then studied the crimson liquid as it started to congeal, to clot.

"Oh."

Idly, she noted that her blood seemed to thicken before her eyes. When she sought it out, she felt the faint pique of discomfort, but only after she expended effort to verify that sensation still existed.

"One of the drugs acts like a steroid, Momma. She sometimes doesn't know her own strength. She's fine. This isn't the first time this happened. She's fine, she's fine." Arnester appeared beside her. That comforted her. Corina felt Sabine's hiss as she backed away.

Momma grabbed him by the back of his gunmetal-grey sport coat. Though he could easily have shrugged out of her grasp, instead he acquiesced and let her lead him into the hallway.

"They're killing her, Arnester Cuno Carofiglio! Your own flesh and blood. And you're letting them! I'm ashamed to call you my son; I'm ashamed you call me your mother. She was like a dancing sunbeam before you and that damned welfare agency! Look at her! Look at her now! Where is that smile? Where are those bright eyes?"

"They're trying to adjust her medications, Momma."

"No! You can't call me that. No more! Not until you can bring me back _mia bambina!_"

Corina heard all that. She was more curious why she was so dispassionate when otherwise she would be adrift in swells of emotion. After that, perhaps what occupied the rest of her consciousness might have been wondering what she would have done before the Condixionie.

Sabine, her eyes bright and eager, merely nodded slowly. Very slowly.

And she smiled.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

"I'm sorry, everyone. We have to go. I need to get Corina back to the ... to the hospital. They want to see her whenever something like this happens." He pressed the small towel against the wound, though it was minor and no longer bleeding.

The wives were in the bedroom, trying to comfort Momma. Only Poppa, Carmelo, Angelo, and Momma's cousins, Giovanni and Nikolai Arrightetti, remained in the living room. Angelo stood behind an armchair, his fingers white and trembling as he clutched the aged and beaten leather. Giovanni and Nikolai stared down the hallway into which Momma vanished with her anguished sobs.

Poppa whipped his glare onto his son. "You are **not** going to leave your mother crying like that! Do you have any honor? Are you even a man? Is that how you show you love your mother?!"

Arnester gave Corina's shoulder a rub but might have tried to do the same to a suspension bridge's cables. Under the blouse, under the undergarments, under the simulated skin, the myomeres in her neck yielded naught.

"Look, I told you, Poppa. We're changing some—"

"Tell them to change her medications back! Your mother is right to be upset. This is her biggest hope, and her deepest hurt."

"Poppa! Corina is right _**here!**_" He patted her stony shoulder.

"_**No! **_No, she _**isn't!**_ Don't you see that? I'm talking **around** her because it tears open my heart each and every time I try to talk **to** her. Look!" Poppa crouched and looked into Corina's unblinking eyes. "So, _bambina_, is the hospital helping you?"

"Yes, Grand-Poppa."

"Good, good." His forced smile made his moustache quiver. "How are they helping? What are they doing?"

"I can't tell you, Grand-Poppa."

"Why, _mio bambina?_ Why?"

"You will get hurt, Grand-Poppa."

"Corina, it's hurting me **now**. I wish I was **dead**, seeing you like this!"

"If I tell you, then you will die, Grand-Poppa. I don't want that to happen."

Poppa stood; his face buried in the crook of his elbow. When his arm fell away, his eyes were red, with tears tracing shiny streams down his leathery, pock-marked face. "Tell me, Arnester! Tell me, your father, that this is how a twelve-year-old talks! Say it to me. I'm standing right here!" His fist pounded his barrel-like chest.

"Poppa, this is why I need to take Corina back to the hospital! I haven't seen her like this until today, either! I'm scared. I'm as scared as you are! Ever since you sent Giada away—"

"Don't you **dare** say that name! I have only _one_ daughter. _**One**_. And, I'm losing even her! Go! Take her to your cursed hospital. However, I warn you, on my mother's grave, if your mother and I don't get Corina back, we have zero children. Do you hear me? **Zero**!"

"Arnester?" Her voice, at once mechanical, yet feminine and with a child's timbre, was soft and absent emotion. Yet, it stunned everyone in the living room into gape-mouthed silence.

After three long heartbeats, her brother swallowed and replied. "Yes, Corina?"

"I think we should leave before I say something I shouldn't."

Ξ§§§Ξ

Dr. Bianchi stilled the metronome, placing its mahogany cover over the tarnished brass. "Will you be all right if I step outside to talk to your brother, Corina?"

"Yes, Doctor."

He opened his exam room's door the same time Arnester opened the observation room's door.

"Is she all right, Doctor?"

Maddeningly, Bianchi waited until the door closed all the way. "Officially? I'd say this is the best I've seen her this whole time I've been working with her."

"Officially?"

Bianchi put his hand on Arnester's shoulder. His eyes were downcast, regarding his chest, his heart. With a soft and strained voice, he explained. "We're looking for killers, Arnester. You saw me; while under hypnosis, she and I roleplayed two scenes where she said she would shoot a person dead, and she said it without hesitating. So, officially, that's an improvement."

He took a deep breath, then raised his gaze to meet Arnester's. "However, you're asking as a brother. She's still Corina, but some of her word association responses indicate a marked increase in compliance with the corresponding drop in independence. Her emotional level is very much not like the Corina of before."

"Can we get that back?"

"It's not like I have pills labeled 'Emotion' in my vault, you know. Individual reactions will vary from girl to girl, but we know Condixionie does have this effect on them. Well, most of them. But, back to what we were talking about: if we decrease her dosage back to normal, that emotionless affect will probably go away."

"Probably?"

"Nothing is for certain here. Nothing is absolutely, completely predictable. The research we're doing isn't anything anyone has done before. Or, if it is, they wouldn't be allowed to publish it. If it's not published, it may as well not exist. So, anything—"

"Wait. You're not going to publish your findings?"

The sadness in Bianchi's eyes fled as surprise and incredulousness flooded in. "No. Did you think we were?"

"The Agency saved Corina. You saved her body, and you saved her mind. That could help thou—"

"What we're doing here is illegal, Arnester. If any government finds out, including our Italy, we would be in front of the Hauge. You were in the military, Arnester. I thought officers had to learn these laws."

"I was intel. We were excluded because it made us less … effective."

"Oh. That makes sense, I guess. Maybe? No matter. Look, the point I was trying to get at is this: we can't be sure with Condixionie. I'm pretty sure that, the more we give her, the more it will help her get in control of her mind. That includes emotions to everyone but you."

Arnester nodded. "Yes, the programming."

"Pre-impressioning, we call it. You can call it a program, if you want. There's some accuracy to that, but I'm not going to waste time debating how much. Pre-impressioning makes sure she will bond to you by already bonding her to you in her deep subconscious as part of intake processing. So, this is why… what were we talking about again?"

"Fixing Corina. Getting her to start acting like herself again."

"Ah, yes. That's right. Condixionie can have unpredicted effects. We know it affects emotion, but …"

"But?"

"This change can be permanent. This could be the new Corina."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

The warehouse was supposed to be empty. The weapons shipment was tracked, seized, and impounded. The smugglers, at least the ones with the sense to surrender, were arrested and taken away. Arnester was tasked simply with 'sweeping' the scene on the off chance that the other law enforcement and intelligence services missed something.

Such was one of the challenges of working for an organization that didn't officially exist.

Midway through their search, they were interrupted by the sound of two larger vehicles approaching. Arnester led Corina to hide in a locker against the back wall of the cavernous building. From there, they spied a dozen men enter, all but two of them armed with submachine guns. Those two went directly to a pile of refuse in the corner nearest the siblings, and, after a short search, pulled out a satchel.

"Looks like everyone missed it." Corina glanced up at her brother as he spoke softly. "There are too many of them. Let's try to follow them."

She cupped her ear, then shook her head. "I hear a helicopter landing."

"It's too dangerous. We can look in that trash heap after—"

But she had already crept out of the locker.

Ξ§§§Ξ

Corina left the Desert Eagle in her black ballistic nylon backpack, preferring to try to move quietly above the men clambering through now-emptied pallet shelving. She needed both hands free, but its significant mass, secured in the integral foam-lined holster reassured her.

The two unarmed men walked casually beneath her. Corina took a breath and landed on the one with the bag, easily snagging it from his surprised hand. She bolted for the doorway, so huge, and yet so distant.

Submachine guns blazed in the vast building, echoing off the cheap steel walls. Corina smiled, confident her speed would not only lead the men away from her brother but also—

A flash of heat surged from her right calf, almost overwhelming her before her augmented endocrine system flooded her brain with a warm fog. Her neck tensed still, expecting a blast of agony. It instead felt a clenching, a strong and overwhelming spasm, but… no pain.

Still, her leg flailed out from under her, causing her to splay onto the cement floor. Her momentum made her slide while prone, tearing her jumper and skin both. She grabbed the bottom crate of a nearby wall of wooden boxes and pulled it down behind her. Bullets punched through the flimsy shield, but at least she was no longer directly visible to the shooters.

She heard bootsteps run up. A man rounded her improvised redoubt, his smile as shiny as the stubby barrel of his Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine gun.

He stared at the cowering and bloodied girl, her blouse greyed and thinned by the concrete floor. The brown shoulder bag was by her wounded leg, its ankle twisted at a painful and unnatural angle. She huddled a black nylon backpack, more a pistol range tote than a schoolgirl's bookbag. She looked up at him with pleading eyes. His finger paused on the trigger, and his thumb started to rise toward the safety.

The nylon bag exploded. Specifically, the bottom disintegrated as if lightning itself struck the bag. The thundering report shocked the other gunmen. The sudden, blinding flash caused them to skid to a stop; one stumbled and fell.

The gunman with the H&K MP-5 fell onto the ground, his mouth agape. His firearm rattled a few shots in an upward arc, then spilled itself out of his hands.

Corina and he stared at one another. Gone was her faked panic, replaced by dispassionate, implacable, calm. His face was overcome with raw, genuine terror, facing the gaping maw of the .50 Desert Eagle less than forty centimeters from his face.

His ears were filled with a constant scream as if from a whistle or flute. He saw her adjust her aim, so the muzzle was now a perfect circle. The lands and grooves seemed to swirl into a bottomless well. Wrestling his gaze away from that abyss, he saw her say something, but could only guess from her lips.

"Sorry."

He cringed. He crossed his gloved palms in front of the seeming cannon, clenched his eyes and looked away. At least it would be -

He lowered his hands and stole a glance through his squinted eyes. Her face was now boiling over with fury, but her glare was at her own hand, trembling nearly as much as his own. Her knuckles were white around the handle, but her index finger did not share this discoloration. Misfire? Jam? He made the sign of the cross.

Just as his hand swept past his sternum, she hurled the two-kilogram pistol at him. The butt of the handle collapsed the bridge of his nose and continued into his braincase, killing him instantly.

Ξ§§§Ξ

Corina clawed at her hair. What good was she? Yes, she was behind soft cover. Yes, she eliminated the immediate threat. However, she couldn't run, and she couldn't shoot. _**Worse, she couldn't lead them away from Arnester!**_

She punched the concrete floor, but that only caused her knuckles to open bloody gashes. She choked back a scream, but felt her hands grow clammy and heard her pulse thunder in her ears. Color drained from her vision until it was only hues of reds. Her breathing grew shallow, and her mouth desiccated.

_This was just like last Christmas at Nonna's…_

Another man rounded the chaos of wood and packing. He swept his submachine gun as he pivoted on his leading foot, but a beast's scream caused his head to turn ahead of his barrel. The sight of a young girl pouncing at him, her eyes feral, her mouth foaming, and her hands stretched into seeming raptor claws caused him to discharge his weapon.

However, his center-of-vision and his weapon's line-of-fire were not the same.

Sabine plunged her fingers into the base of his skull, forcing them through skin and hair, then tissue, and finally cartilage. Her legs wrapped around his torso, the tip of the left one flopping and flailing. As her teeth sunk into his upper lip and nose, her arms strained upward until she felt the slight pop, the bit of slack, and then the rubbery countering force of his tendons refusing to relinquish their claim to his skull.

As he fell, she threw her body to one side, releasing him so he would land as a broken heap between her and the next assailant.

He slowed his run into a careful shuffling walk toward his fallen comrade. He held his fire as the prone girl rose onto all fours. She was kissing his comrade-in-arms, the one he was just needling about a new tattoo on the way here. Why was she kissing him? Why wasn't he hugging her back?

She snapped her head forward and back, tearing away part of his teammate's face. The body fell again, and the partially-flayed head lolled crazily on the concrete, as if it was attached only by a string.

She nudged it so it spilled its gaze onto him. The upper lip, the nose, the eyelids, and part of the forehead was missing. His compatriot's bare and naked eyeballs stared at him.

He took a step back, his mouth locked open in a dry gasp.

Into that mouth flew both her hands as she launched herself at him.

The caustic flare as his jaw was dislocated shocked him into merciful unconsciousness before he was dismembered.

Ξ§§§Ξ

Arnester felt compelled to absorb the carnage from the confines of the locker. Sabine, terrifying Sabine, tore through two, three, four men. That last victim tried to engage her with a combat knife. She was now armed with the gleaming blade in one hand, and his severed forearm in the other. As she lurched toward to others, one fired wildly before fleeing, and the others simply fled.

In slow, cautious steps, he approached his sister. He floated his hands between them, palms toward her in a placating gesture. "Sabine? I know you're in there. It's me, remember? Your brother."

Sabine, her mouth filled with foam of varying hue from nearly pure white to a dark crimson, spat guttural growls and hisses at him. Her eyes searched around he-to-not-harm, under him, looking for more prey.

"You did good, Sabine. You protected your sisters, your pack. Do you hear me?" He was just under two meters away from her, but dared not to come any closer. Her eyes still hungered, still howled their emptiness as she frantically flicked her glance all about. He ended up gliding to one side and the other, his hands still outstretched, but palms now down, fingers tensed and splayed.

She glared at her leg, incensed at how it always failed. Her other leg was strong, stable. She could use it to move, to pounce. But this leg would not work. It would not stay. It would not hold. She looked at the sharp in her hand. Perhaps it was better to be rid of this leg. She narrowed her eyes as she studied her weakened limb, as if it was another target. She raised the sharp.

"No!" Arnester tried to deflect the blade, but it slashed his right palm. At least Sabine didn't cut herself, which seemed her intent.

Sabine recoiled at the horror of he-to-not-harm's agony. Her limbs revolted against her, and her head filled with the screams of a thousand terrors.

"_**Arnester!"**_ Corina wrapped herself around his wounded hand.

"Cory…Annie?"

Tears choked her throat. Somehow, she managed to gasp out, "Yes!"

"Wel… welcome back."

She sniffled back the swell of fear, of anguish at seeing his injury. "What… what happened?"

"Sabine … Sabine came out. Good, too."

But, she stared at the scarlet stain under his kerchief and knew it could never happen again.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

"We both need the first aid kit. I'll go get it." Arnester stumbled to his feet, his hands still tightly clasped together to staunch the bleeding.

"No, you're hurt. I'll g—" Corina toppled as she tried to put weight on her leg.

"I'm mobile, you're not. Stay here. I'll be right back."

"But… I did that! I should be the one to get it."

"Sabine did that, Cory-Annie. Not you. It's not your fault. Now, don't make me order you." He gave a wan smirk.

Corina nodded, her brow stormy. Sabine can't be allowed to hurt Arnester again. Ever.

She blinked rapidly, as if this would more quickly refine the idea coalescing in her mind. On three good limbs, she crawled back to the pile of wood that was the site for her last memory.

The bottom of the range bag was indeed shredded, but most of the interior sheaths and pockets were undamaged. She yanked her Desert Eagle from the gunman's skull. It finally released with a sickening, wet sound. She put the ichor-covered pistol back into what was left of its holster. The spare magazine was the next pouch, but she wanted the contents of the pouch after that. Originally sized to hold a box of pistol cartridges, it instead held the five vials of Condixionie she managed to glean from self-rationing.

She injected herself, then again. Midway through the plunger-stroke, Sabine stirred, then approached.

_I am sorry. I didn't mean to cut Him._

"I don't care." Corina forced the vial's contents into her leg.

_I protected us. I did my job. I was … trying to do what we created me for_.

"I don't care." Corina pulled the needle out of her thigh, shaking her head to try to clear the haze that set over her thoughts.

_I saved us. I saved Him. You couldn't. I did_.

Corina dropped the needle as she unthreaded it from the second vial. "I don't care. You need to go."

_No. You should go. You're the worthless one. You couldn't save us. I did_.

"I never harmed Arnester!" With nearly numb-fingers Corina felt the bulge that was the base of the syringe needle.

_That won't happen again_.

"I know. I'm going to make sure of it." She dropped the tip again as she fumbled for the third vial.

_Please don't do this. I just want to be in the front. I want to be useful. I want to protect us. I want to help Him. I'm just like you_.

Somehow, she managed to get the two parts together. She jabbed her bad leg with the third vial. "You're nothing like me. I work with him. You are just … look around. I don't know how you did it, but I know you did it. Look at these bodies. You're nothing more than an animal."

_I don't have to be. Look. We're talking. If you keep taking this much Condixionie, we can work together_.

Sabine's words seemed to distort as Corina started to advance the plunger. "There is no working together. Not anymore. Arnester deserves better than this. He deserves a real sister, a _healthy_ sister. Not a school bus of broken girls."

_At least I'm useful to him. You can't even use that gun! He can't use you. You're just going to be dead weight to him!_

"He deserves better than me, too."

Sabine`s response was an incoherent garble as Corina flushed the third vial into her.

The young girl felt her burning cheeks suddenly develop trails of ice. She dabbed her face, wondering what caused it.

Her fingertips came away damp.

With a bitter smile, she unscrewed the vial from the needle, leaving it in her leg. She looked at it as it minutely vibrated in time with her rushing pulse.

Corina appreciated this little correlation, because she knew it was her last one.

The fourth vial was screwed onto the needle.

Then the fifth.

Ξ§§§Ξ

Arnester opened the Alfa's rear hatch, then rooted about for the first aid bag. His hand touched a smaller box, one gaily wrapped and festooned with a ribbon. With a smile, he grasped it, grateful he forgot to take Corina's present into Nonna's place last night, and glad today was Christmas day, so he could still give it to her.

He found the first aid kit, then, giving up on figuring out a way to bring it and the present back to his sister, all the while with his palms firmly clasped together, started applying the bandage to his wounded hand.

Once his hands could be used independently, he raced back to Corina, both out of concern for her leg, and excited to give her the gift. In fact, he wasn't sure which to tend to first.

She wasn't by the discarded knife and the man's forearm. He looked around and saw she was sitting by the pile of wooden crates, her eyes clenched shut. Her face was clouded by a greyish pallor, and beads of sweat coalesced and streamed down from her brow.

"Corina!"

She didn't respond, though she did take a sharp, pained breath.

He hurried over. "Sorry I took so long! Here, let's look at your leg."

"It's fine. I'm not in any danger. Remember, I have pro-coagulant secretors in case of wounds."

The flat affect was an echo to last night's events, and he froze. He looked around and saw four Condixionie vials. A fifth one, emptied, was still inserted into her thigh.

"How… how many?"

"Doses? Five."

"Why? Do you know how dangerous that is?"

"It's not. Dr. Bianchi suggested multiple times to give a macro-dose of Condixionie to resolve my Dissociative Identity Disorder."

"Well, speaking of Dr. Bianchi, let's get you splinted up so we can get you a visit."

"Agreed. I see you have already staunched your bleeding as well."

Arnester shook off the uncomfortable chill at hearing her flat, dispassionate voice. Working together, they quickly restored at least limited functionality to her injured leg, the exit and entrance wounds already scabbed over in this short time.

"Oh, and before I forget _again_, here's your Christmas present." Arnester produced the festive-looking box.

His sister took it mechanically, then, without opening it, studied it. "Thank you. I'm sure I will use this to be useful to you and the Agency."

"No, it's for you. It's to help with your hobby."

Her emotionless countenance melted, replaced by confusion. She leaned her head to one side and blinked at him. Her wordless question hung in the air.

"It's for your… you know, your time lapse drawings. It's a camera, see?" Eager and impatient to see her look of delight, Arnester unwrapped the gift. "See? It's a 35mm camera. You don't have to draw flowers and trees and skylines. You can just take a picture and _voila_, it's done!"

The unnerving calm seeped back over her face. "I see. Will this assist you and the Agency?"

"No, no. It's for your hobby. Don't you see? You don't have to spend so much time drawing things – you can just … wait. You're not Corina, are you?"

"No, they're gone."

"They?"

"Sabine. Katarina. Corina. They were integrated today. As opposed Prissi, Shelby, Celia, Sofrina, Tatiana and the rest who were integrated before today."

"So I'm talking to … Olympia."

"Correct."

"Who doesn't need a camera."

"While Corina is part of me, I do not share her avocations."

"Hobbies, right?"

"Yes, hobbies. Avocations."

Arnester looked at the camera. "I guess we'll use this to assist me and the Agency."

"Agreed."

Arnester hung the strap around her neck. "It still looks good on you, Olympia. Who knows, maybe someday…"

"Perhaps. However, there is one matter I wish to request your assistance with."

"Yes?"

"I do not feel Olympia is perhaps the best name for me. I am no longer merely Olympia. As I said earlier, I am also Corina, Katarina, Tatiana, Sofrina, and many others."

Arnester forced a jaunty grin. "Well, Corina-Katarina-Tatiana-Sofrina-Corina is a little long."

"Indeed. I was actually thinking of shortening my name to reflect this change in identity."

"So I call you Ollie?"

"I would rather go by Pia."


End file.
